Foreword

• Author: Brendan Bain
• Profession: Regional Coordinator, the University of the West Indies HIV/AIDS Response Programme (UWI HARP)
• Pages: 11-12

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FOREWORD

This publication was made possible through the collaboration of a

team from the University of the West Indies HIV/AIDS Response

Programme (UWI HARP). UWI HARP was launched in 2001 based on the

premise that HIV and AIDS are much more than medical problems. From

its inception, campus-based teams in Barbados, Jamaica and Trinidad and

Tobago framed HIV and AIDS as a multifaceted societal problem requiring

a multidisciplinary response. The recent colloquium ‘From Risk to

Vulnerability: Power, Culture and Gender in the Spread of HIV and AIDS

in the Caribbean’ which took place at the Mona campus of the University of

the West Indies, Kingston, Jamaica in September 2007, and this book,

which is its sequel, are the result of a deliberate attempt to view the epidemic

from many angles.

In addition to linking staff and students from this University around a

common theme, one of the stated aims of UWI HARP is to partner with

Government and non-Governmental organizations in the response to HIV.

For this reason, we welcome the contributions of colleagues from other

institutions and agencies to the colloquium and to the book. We are

especially pleased about the input from NGO-based researchers, from

persons in the multilingual and multicultural Caribbean and from writers

based in North America, the UK and The Netherlands who are familiar

with the Caribbean diaspora.

Recently, UWI HARP’s approach has shifted from a traditional

compartmentalized or segregated multidisciplinary way of working to an

interdisciplinary approach in which genuine dialogue is being attempted

between and among scholars belonging to a variety of disciplines. In fact,

the newly revised UWI HARP mission statement commits us to ‘positively

impacting the health and wellness of the University population and the

wider Caribbean society through interdisciplinary research, education and

Foreword

Brendan Bain

Regional Coordinator, The University of the West Indies

HIV/AIDS Response Programme (UWI HARP)